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Appaloosa

When it comes to writing, Robert B. Parker knows no boundaries. From the iconic Spenser detective series and the novels featuring Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone, to the groundbreaking historical novel Double Play, Parker's imagination has taken readers from Boston to Brooklyn and back again. In Appaloosa, fans are taken on another trip, to the untamed territories of the West during the 1800s.

The Godwulf Manuscript

Spenser earned his degree in the school of hard knocks, so he is ready when a Boston university hires him to recover a rare, stolen manuscript. He is hardly surprised that his only clue is a radical student with four bullets in his chest. The cops are ready to throw the book at the pretty blond coed whose prints are all over the murder weapon but Spenser knows there are no easy answers. He tackles some very heavy homework and knows that if he doesn't finish his assignment soon, he could end up dead.

Robert B. Parker's Debt to Pay: Jesse Stone, Book 15

All is quiet in Paradise, except for a spate of innocuous vandalism. Good thing, too, because Jesse Stone is preoccupied with the women in his life, both past and present. As his ex-wife, Jenn, is about to marry a Dallas real-estate tycoon, Jesse isn't too sure his relationship with former FBI agent Diana Evans is built to last. But those concerns get put on the back burner when a major Boston crime boss is brutally murdered. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Jesse suspects it's the work of Mr. Peepers.

Deer Run Trail

The year was 1881, an' young Ruben Beeler was makin' his way along near the Missouri River, findin' work when he could an' livin' the only life he knew. When he come on ol' Arliss Hyatt, beat to hell an' near shot to death, Rube done what he could for him. He didn't know that act of kindness was gonna wind up changin' his whole life, but it did.

Ten Guns from Texas: A Duff MacCallister Western

When Duff MacCallister journeys to Texas to deliver 100 head of Angus cattle, he finds a land on fire. Unruly, lawless teams of fence cutters, branded Blue Devils by the locals, are rampaging across grazing land and cutting fences in the name of an Eastern land company. The ranchers are fighting back, and Duff joins the fray. But the fight leads to Austin and into an even deadlier mission.

Hush Money: Spenser Series, Book 26

When Robin Nevins, the son of Hawk's boyhood mentor, is denied at an exclusive university, Hawk asks Spenser to investigate. It seems the denial is tied to the suicide of a young gay activist, and as Spenser digs deeper, he is nearly drowned in a multicultural swamp of politics: black, gay, academic, and feminist. At the same time, Spenser's inamorata, Susan, asks him to come to the aid of an old college friend, K.C. Roth, the victim of a stalker. Spenser solves the problem a bit too effectively when K.C. turns the tables and begins to stalk him.

The Wrong Side of Goodbye: A Harry Bosch Novel, Book 21

Harry Bosch is California's newest private investigator. He doesn't advertise, he doesn't have an office, and he's picky about who he works for, but it doesn't matter. His chops from 30 years with the LAPD speak for themselves. Soon one of Southern California's biggest moguls comes calling. The reclusive billionaire has less than six months to live and a lifetime of regrets. He hires Bosch to find out whether he has an heir.

An Obvious Fact

In the midst of the largest motorcycle rally in the world, a young biker is run off the road and ends up in critical condition. When Sheriff Walt Longmire and his good friend, Henry Standing Bear, are called to Hulett, Wyoming - the nearest town to America's first national monument, Devils Tower - to investigate, things start getting complicated.

This Violent Land: A Smoke Jensen Novel of the West

Kirby - later Smoke - Jensen has just earned his first paying job as a deputy US marshal for the Colorado Territory and is sent to the lawless town of Las Animas. There he finds a sheriff too cowardly to face the outlaw leader Cole Dawson, whose six-gun has left a lot of good men dead. Young Smoke feels no such fear. He takes Dawson down fast. Then the real fight begins. It turns out Dawson is only a cog in a crooked plot hatched by someone hiding behind the law.

Gunman's Rhapsody

It is the winter of 1879, and Dodge city has lost its snap. Thirty-one-year-old Wyatt Earp, assistant city marshal, loads his wife and all they own into a wagon, and goes with two of his brothers and their women to Tombstone, Arizona, land of the silver mines. There Earp becomes deputy sheriff, meeting up with the likes of Doc Holliday, Clay Allison and Bat Masterson as well as finding the love of his life, showgirl Josie Marcus.

Strong Convictions: Emmett Strong Westerns Book 1

In 1876 the seemingly impossible happened in San Antonio, Texas - Emmett Strong, a prodigy of a pistolero, accidentally shot his own young wife in a showdown gone awry. Five years later, death again visits Emmett's family, and now - want to or not - he's going to have to overcome his reluctance to draw his six-gun if he's to catch and bring to justice the crazed gunman who murdered his brother.

Smoke Jensen, the Beginning

For the first time, an epic account of a boy born into a struggle for survival on the harsh and unforgiving American frontier, the story behind the legend of Smoke Jensen.... On the eve of the Civil War, Kirby Jensen is the youngest of three children living on a hardscrabble ranch in Southwestern Missouri. But in 1861, shots were fired in Charleston harbor, and Kirby's father and brother went to war.

Escape Clause: A Virgil Flowers Novel, Book 9

The first storm comes from, of all places, the Minnesota zoo. Two large and very rare Amur tigers have vanished from their cage, and authorities are worried sick that they've been stolen for their body parts. Traditional Chinese medicine prizes those parts for home remedies, and people will do extreme things to get what they need. Some of them are a great deal more extreme than others - as Virgil is about to find out.

Night School: A Jack Reacher Novel, Book 21

It's 1996, and Reacher is still in the army. In the morning they give him a medal, and in the afternoon they send him back to school. That night he's off the grid. Out of sight, out of mind. Two other men are in the classroom - an FBI agent and a CIA analyst. Each is a first-rate operator, each is fresh off a big win, and each is wondering what the hell they are doing there. Then they find out: A jihadist sleeper cell in Hamburg, Germany, has received an unexpected visitor - a Saudi courier seeking safe haven while waiting to rendezvous with persons unknown.

Bloodshed of the Mountain Man

Smoke Jensen has journeyed up to the Colorado Rockies to a sell a prized bull to a local rancher. Instead, the rancher and his wife have been mercilessly slaughtered by outlaws only moments before Smoke's arrival. In a hail of bullets, Smoke pulverizes two of the murderers and drags two others to the town of Brown Spur for justice. Come hanging day, the two killers are on the way to the gallows when a thundering gang of raiders crashes into town and rescues them from the jaws of death.

Man Hunter

Was it justice... or revenge? What drove a simple farmer to set out on an impossible quest after a gang of bloodthirsty killers that raped and murdered his wife and slit his small son's throat? Their trail led him halfway across the country and deep into Mexico. One by one he tracked them down and brought them to justice, sometimes at the end of a short rope, more often in front of his fast guns, and he didn't care which.

The High Graders

The story was that Eli Patterson had died in a gunfight, but Mike Shevlin knew it couldn't be true: The man who'd been like a father to him had been a Quaker. But when Shevlin rides back to Rafter Crossing to uncover the truth, he finds that the quiet ranching community has become a booming mining town. Newfound wealth has not made Rafter a peaceful place, however, and the smell of fear and greed is thick in the air.

Those Jensen Boys!

Their father is Luke Jensen, supposedly killed in the Civil War. Their uncle Smoke is one of the fiercest gunfighters the West has ever known. It's no surprise that the inseparable Ace and Chance Jensen have a knack for taking risks - even if they have to blast their way out of them. Chance is a bit of a hothead, good with his gun and his fists. Ace is more of a thinker, sharp as a snake bite and just as deadly quick.

Publisher's Summary

For years, Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch have ridden roughshod over rabble-rousers and gun hands in troubled towns like Appaloosa, Resolution, and Brimstone. Now, newly appointed as territorial marshalls, they find themselves traveling by train through the Indian Territories.

Their first marshaling duty starts out as a simple mission: to escort Mexican prisoners to the border. But when the governor of Texas, his wife, and his daughters climb aboard with their bodyguards and $500,000 in tow, their journey suddenly becomes a lot more complicated.

The problem is Bloody Bob Brandice. He and Virgil have had it out before, an encounter that left Brandice face-down in the street with two .44 slugs lodged in him. Now, 12 years later, on a night train struggling uphill in a thunderstorm, Brandice is back - and he's not alone.

Cole and Hitch find themselves in the midst of a heist with a horde of very bad men, two beautiful young hostages, and a man with a vendetta he's determined to carry out.

I was really pleased with' Ironhorse.' Robert Knott picks up the threads of Cole and Hitch's story and does a fine job. Parker fans that are nervous about the new writers taking over the established characters will be glad to know that Mr. Knott was a great choice for this series. Titus Welliver brings the characters and action to life with his usual flair. I can't imagine listening to anyone else reading the "Appaloosa" books.

Our first Virgil Cole and Everret Hitch novel since the passing of Robert B. Parker. The author stayed true to the characters and their actions. Really didn't notice the writing was not Mr. Parker. Great western novel. We hope there will be more to come.

This book follows Robert Parker's earlier books in the series so well that I couldn't tell how much, if any of this was Parker's writing. If you liked the other books in the series, you'll like this one. The "Virgil said" "I said" issue that people have had in the other books wasn't nearly as noticeable, or I've gotten used to it and it didn't annoy me at all.

An enjoyable listen if one likes westerns. I really don't try to determine if Knott writes like Parker or not because I only care about being entertained. This is an entertaining story and Titus Welliver does a great job with the narration.

It's not completely clear whether this book is all-original by Robert Knott, or his completion of a Robert B. Parker manuscript. The title sure suggests Parker started it, and the text copyright is given as "the estate of Robert B. Parker". But an author interview online makes it sound like Knott wrote the whole thing. Knott does appear to be uniquely qualified to pick up Parker's torch, as he co-wrote (with Ed Harris) the screenplay for Appaloosa, based on the first book in the Parker series.

In any case, if it didn't have Knott's name on it you wouldn't guess it wasn't written by Parker. It's written completely in the style that Parker developed for Marshall Virgil Cole and his Deputy Everett Hitch - tough, laconic, fair-minded, decisive, courteous to the ladies and the bad guys' worst nightmares. A little like having two Gary Coopers in High Noon. Virgil does have a breaking point though. He would normally not kill a man unless he was looking him in the eye, but this one SOB abused horses, so ...

Virgil and Everett are back, wrapped up with train robbers of the meanest sort and damsels in distress of the purest sort. The book's a classic western in the tradition of Eastwood's spaghetti westerns. There's never any doubt that the good guys are going to prevail, but it's a lot of fun to watch them do it.

Titus Welliver has narrated every book in the Cole-Hitch audiobook series, and he's the perfect man for the job. Some of the dialog between Virgil and Everett consists of a series of one or two word statements (they never quite say "yup"); Welliver delivers these lines flawlessly, and you're never aware of the author's "Virgil said" or "Everett said". It's like listening to a dialog in a movie.

Newcomers to the series shouldn't miss out on much by starting with this book or any other in the series - the back-story is suggested but not necessary to enjoy the book. Virgil's girlfriend Allie French doesn't make an appearance, but there are several references to her, none necessary to the plot.

This is a great read. I hope Robert Knott carries right on with this remarkable series.

P.S. One quibble: Virgil and Everett backtrack along a railroad line to find Bloody Bob Brandice, who jumped off a quarter-mile back. When Everett says they walked "about a hundred furlongs or so" that tells me he's never watched a horse race. Maybe a hundred rods, if he wants old English measures.

I love Robert B Parker, and enjoyed the Appaloosa series enough to listen to them all twice. I thought I would give this a try because Titus Welliver is a good narrator. I thought he could bring some continuity to the extension of the series and I was hopeful. Frankly I was just bored the whole way through. I listened to the whole thing, being somewhat desperate for entertainment, but this did not deliver. It was like a meal with no salt. No spice, Pretty predictable and a lot of rambling dialogue that did not create interest or depth. So sorry Mr. Knott, good effort. but C-.

It was good seeing the old friends, but it seemed a bit too formulaic. What snatteg my senses as there seemd to be too much of this dialogue.."I think cows have horns" "Yep, they surely do have horms." "I agree. Horns" I think the messages was they think alike, but its done so many times my head said. "We'd lose a third of the book, if you cut all of the times they repeat each other. Gave it a "paid by the word" feel. I love these stories and I know the author changed, so maybe with a little criticism they can improve...I'd like to keep them alive.

What do you think your next listen will be?

I'd give this one more shot to see if it improves. After that, I'll re-read the earlier books and just be happy with that.